Having done both - they're not necessarily easy, but if you know you're stuff, or have done the training, then it's a bit of fun having a go - and its surprising how much more you learn while doing it too.

I just had a look at the two links you provided. Looking at it the training is free but to then use the software is this £32 a month ?? Not having clients on Quickbooks at the moment I was was thinking of doing the training after reading the links but cant justify the £32 a month unless I have clients on it. Catch 22??

Did you findf you picked up clients for QB easily once trained certified.

The Desktop version is brilliant in my opinion - and as a ProAdvisor (desktop partner), yes, it's £32 per month (plus VAT!) I have had a number of enquiries from people that are QuickBooks users, but I don't honestly think that the certification has necessarily generated those enquiries - probably more my website, where I stress that I'm a QuickBooks specialist.

If you're unsure about whether to commit to QuickBooks, you could purchase the Pro version of Quickbooks from Amazon for not much more than £100 and this would do the same job and last you for 3 years without any obligation or necessity to upgrade. You would miss out on the support and a free Pro version for resale - but you could always join at a later date if you liked it, got customers with it and wanted to continue with it.

With regards to the Online version - you can sign up free for this, and get your own file for your own business (or practice / sample file) if you get an enquiry from a customer that wanted to use it, or already uses it - you can add them into your package at the cost of £6 per month (at the moment, for the Plus version, which is the top version). This is a 'wholesale' price and allows you to charge the customer a higher amount per month. QuickBooks are currently charging £13.70 plus VAT per month for Essentials, which is the middle version, so I usually find a middle ground for charging, which most clients seem very happy with. So in summary - it wouldn't cost you a bean to get certified with the Online version as training is free, and being a Partner is free....

Having said all this - QuickBooks Online can be a very frustrating package - I'm very close to changing to another package because of it's downfalls - at the moment, it's just its cost that keeps me with it. It has a long way to go before it's any where near as good as it's desktop version - but is Xero and Kashflow any better.............I don't know and wont know, until I try them!!!

If you go to quickbooks.co.uk and click on the Accountants and Bookkeepers link at the top of the page, this will give you the option to look at Training - this will tell you all about certification.

I would just like to say, that as you brought up a thread from 2014, that a lot has changed since then. QuickBooks Online is now such a different program to what it was 2 years ago - it's now fabulous. Intuit have invested so much time and effort into making it a superb package, that I'm now glad I stuck with it - and wouldn't dream of swapping to anything else now.

I agree with Carol. A lot has changed since 2014. I have now done the qualification (in May this year) and am QBO Certified. I have one client on it so far but have not had time to use it since the training as my practice has also got busier since 2014. What a difference two years can make. :-)

Once I get the chance to get my own accounts on it and have more of a play with it I plan to offer QB as my online offering and Sage 50 for those that dont want access to their software.